Blissed out, post-shavasana this morning around 5:30am. I have heard from several people in the past few years how much I look like my mother. This is the very first time I really see it. How strange when your own face reminds you of someone you love and miss so much.

This morning, I woke up at 4am, got dressed, brushed my teeth, put water on for tea, spread my (giant green circular) yoga mat over my kitchen floor, poured a cup of tea, turned on some music and started my yoga practice. When I was done with my yoga practice, I meditated. After I meditated, I drank my (cold) tea. Now --- aaaaaaaah – I’m writing. If I were disciplined and consistent, this is exactly how every single morning for the rest of my life would go. But I’m not either of those things. And for the majority of my life I have shamed myself for that fact. I want to say because I’m 40, this is never going to change but I firmly believe that change is possible at any age so that’s silly. The fact is, I don’t really enjoy discipline or consistency. I prefer flexibility and spontaneity. It’s taken me a great deal of time to realize and accept that flexibility and spontaneity are every bit as valuable as discipline and consistency. This realization and acceptance has been monumental in my acceptance of self. People who value discipline and consistency over flexibility and spontaneity eventually reach a point where they don’t like me much – if even only in a particular moment. And it used to be very easy for people to make me feel bad about myself so their rigidity and judgment of me used to crush my spirit and flood me with self-doubt and shame. Nope. No thank you. Not anymore.

I listened to "Keep Breathing" by Ingrid Michaelson on repeat for all of my standing poses this morning..."all we can do is keep breathing"...

I am actually proud of my flexibility and spontaneity now. Without these qualities, I wouldn’t be able to do half of the things I do on a daily basis. I certainly wouldn’t be able to mother my two children whose personalities are so different it’s as if they are both aliens from two completely different planets. I wouldn’t be able to respond with compassion and true interest and be completely engaged in the many “teachable moments” that crop up in my classroom every day. I wouldn’t drop everything I’m doing for a friend or a family member who needs me, whether it’s to just talk on the phone or to hop on a plane and get to them as quickly as I can. And more constantly that anything else, if I were not flexible and spontaneous, I would not have my writing. As a full-time Professor, a mother to two children and a partnered person, if I did not respond flexibly and spontaneously to my urges to write, no writing would ever be done.

Still, it’s not as if I possess absolutely NO discipline and NO consistency. I am not a particularly disciplined person though it has taken some discipline to achieve the many things that I have. I am not a particularly consistent person though it has required some consistency to get where I am today. But I’m not one of those people you can say “always” does this or “always” does that. And though for the most part, I can stick to a schedule and a plan, if I feel like chuckin’ that plan for the day because a friend invites me to do something else or because my daughter wants me to snuggle in bed for three more hours in the morning, well, as I’ve said before: life is painfully short. Fun and love win out over discipline and consistency any day.

And yet, there is fun and there is love in discipline and consistency. Well…at least love. It would be loving towards myself to give myself my yoga practice and tea and meditation every single morning. I also believe that the practices of yoga and meditation are not just gifts to ourselves but also to everyone around us and to the universe. When we practice yoga and/or meditation, we are able to calm our own minds and become more rational, healthier people. When we do this, we are helping to produce better, calmer, more rational, healthier relationships and therefore doing our part to create peace in the world. So, this type of discipline contains an enormous amount of love, in fact.

And…as I think about it… though it is important to respond with flexibility and spontenaity to my writing urges, it is the discipline and consistency of carving out time every single day to simply do the writing that helps me make true progress.

The truth is, though I have come to understand and treasure these qualities that very much make me me – I guess I have always wanted to be able to cultivate more discipline and consistency in my life.

This whole Team QueenPrincess endeavor is helping me do just that. I have known for years – seriously, YEARS – that I need to practice yoga, meditate, eat healthy, write and exercise moderately-vigorously most days in order to be a sane, productive person. For years, I have listened to a culture that tells me, “That’s crazy! You can’t have all of those things! When will you work? When will you sleep?” But if I don’t give myself all of these things, my work sucks and I can’t sleep.

When I finally accepted a few weeks ago that I really did have to have this upcoming surgery, I realized I needed some tools to mentally and physically prepare myself for it. Then, it quickly dawned on me that I already have all of those tools. I knew what I needed to cultivate happiness and health in my life because I’ve essentially been studying this for the past fourteen years. The trick is, I needed to APPLY all of these tools. My flexibility allowed me to accept the fact of the surgery. Now, I have to cultivate discipline and consistency.

Everyone on Team QueenPrincess is helping me do this. I feel beholden to you to do the happy practices – especially to my teammates who are doing the happy practices with me! I feel responsible for responding to your messages and posts because they are often so personal and so important and so… such a…a, gift. I have to exercise and meditate and consciously be kind and write every day for this project – for the first few days, I was moving through the project on solid Dragon energy (see earlier post about my totems to fully understand this) -- that is, my spontaneity and flexibility and pure zest for life was practically pulling me along. But, Dragon often does not realize that sleep needs to be had or else Dragon will crash – and frequently does. So, last night, Bear gently took the phone and the computer out of Dragon’s scaly little hands and looked him right in the eye and said, “Dragon, if you don’t sleep, I’m going to eat you.”

Then, this morning, when Wolf’s beady little eyes blinked open at 3:55am and Bear was saying, “aaaw shucks, I only got SEVEN hours of sleep. I need at least three or four more!” Dragon roared “his terrible roar” and said, “get your ass out of bed” then Mermaid was like, “Yes, it’s time to do Yoga and Meditate. I need to streeeeeetch out.” Then Wolf prowled around the house preparing while Mermaid combed her hair, Dragon did jumping jacks and Bear rubbed his eyes. Then, we all settled in together and started with sun salutations…

...and Petit Poulet by Sinead O'Connor on repeat for all of my seated postures..."there isn't any answer to the question. You only learn to live with it."...

This is to say, I am realizing today that I will not get through the next 21 days without discipline and consistency. But, I have to keep reminding myself that this discipline and consistency will give me clarity and calm and will help me cultivate the happiness advantage and community I need to face this surgery and my recovery triumphantly.

WARNING: Do not read if you can’t handle reading words like Uterus, Vagina, Ovaries, Fibroids, Periods, etc… or in general can’t accept the fact that women have organs inside of their bodies and are normal flesh-and-blood human beings…

I’m just going to come right out and say it. On June 25th, I am having an abdominal, partial hysterectomy. They’re taking my uterus. I’m keeping my ovaries – that part is the good news. This is happening because I have a fibroid the size of a 4-month-old fetus in my uterus which is really bad enough but… is also causing insanely heavy periods and uterine prolapse – which is all exactly about as much fun as it sounds. This is also happening because I have two choices: don’t have surgery or have surgery. If I don’t have surgery, the fibroid will likely continue to grow, the prolapse will never reverse itself and the bad periods will continue and likely get worse until menopause. Yay! Go being a lady! If I DO have the surgery, it’s all gone – the fibroid, the prolapse, the periods. Right now, the fibroid, the prolapse and the periods are seriously (and have been for about a year) interfering with my training. I can’t run comfortably for long distances. I can’t bike without literally pinching my uterus inside of my vagina – how about some of that? You like that idea? Ya, it super sucks. I haven’t tried swimming yet (since the prolapse became seriously noticeable – not to other people, silly! I mean, noticeable to me – inside of me) but I’m going to cross that bridge on Tuesday night. Shouldn’t be too impossible but still not comfortable. And… these days when I’m lifting, it literally feels like my uterus is going to pop out of me. Okay, I just used the word “literally” a lot – but it bears repeating. I’m not just using a figure of speech. It IS literal. It has been so difficult to be completely out of the training game this year. I had set so many good goals for myself this season and was unable to accomplish any of them. I was really looking forward to doing XMR (Xtreme Muck Ruck) in Copemish which would have been my first obstacle course. I was also psyched to do the Hit & Run 5K in Grand Rapids and the Hot Cocoa Classic near Detroit. Neither happened. All because of this fibroid and all the other problems that it’s been causing. I could bury my head in the sand and not have this surgery right now. I’m really that terrified of it that I did consider it. The idea of having this surgery super sucks. I am going to be recovering for at least six weeks. They have to do an abdominal incision which is about the most invasive kind of hysterectomy you can get. I will have a terrible scar. I will be risking complications. If everything goes fabulously, it will take me another – at least – eight weeks after my six week recovery period just to work up to a 5K (That’s my goal – a 5K by Halloween). But, I’m not going to avoid all of that and I’m not going to bury my head in the sand because… training, running, lifting, biking, swimming, dancing, working out, being active with my kids, moving my body as much as my body wants to move (which is a hell of a lot) has become MY lifestyle. And it has taken me forty years to get here and﻿I refuse to give it up now.﻿ So, here’s the plan: a fabulous, complication-free surgery, a fabulous, complication-free and fast recovery (my doctor will be stunned at how well I’m doing!), the C25K program as soon as I’m cleared to start running again – which will be 6 weeks, a 5K by Halloween, back into tri-training by Christmas, participate in Delta College’s indoor tri again in April, be ready for the Hawk-I sprint tri in Lansing by June and the Sanford & Sun sprint tri by August. From there, I will build up to an Olympic aquabike, then eventually a half-marathon, a marathon, a few centuries, a few big swims (I want to do big swims in all of the great lakes by the summer of 2016!) and eventually eventually eventually a half ironman and then eventually eventually eventually, by the time I’m 50, an ironman. That gives me ten years to do it all. I once heard someone say that when you start making plans, the universe just starts laughing. But I believe that sometimes when you start making plans, the universe simply says, “okay… it’s about time” then does whatever the universe can to help you out. If I don’t have this surgery, the training will have to stop. If the training stops, none of these goals can be achieved and what I’ve been steadily working so hard for so long on will just unravel. The emotional stability and happiness that exercise and good nutrition supply me with will begin to dissipate which would eventually begin to affect my relationships with the people I love. So, I’m having the surgery.

I’m posting all of this because I’m hoping it helps other people to hear. I’m hoping it makes someone feel less alone. The first fitness facebook page I started to follow just about six months ago is called “Fit & Fierce” and it is written by a completely bad-ass volunteer firewoman (I think?) – anyway, she’s always doing crazy badass stuff and she trains and lifts hard and eats well. Her facebook page posts were mostly of the inspirational variety and everything she wrote always made sense to me. It was all a message of self-love and self-care. The very things MoJo’s Kitchen believes health starts with.

A couple of weeks ago, “Fit & Fierce” wrote a post apologizing for being AWOL for several weeks. She pointed to the complicated connection between mind and body and explained that she was battling a bout of depression. Like all her posts, it was brave and honest. The truth is no one approaches fitness or good nutrition with a blank slate. We all carry everything we’ve been given or taken up our whole lives into the kitchen, onto the table, into the gym. Sometimes all of that shit keeps us lying in bed, unable to move. Sometimes it gets us punching a bag so hard, we’re awed by our own power. But it’s all connected.

What’s been happening to my body over the past several months and what is about to happen to my body has definitely affected my behavior in the kitchen. Once again, I have been neglecting, many days, to cook and eat with love. I haven’t been sleeping well so my workouts are sporadic and sometimes I push through them despite the fact that I feel utterly drained of energy. Those are the bad days. Some days, everything feels right back in place – those are usually days I’m avoiding thinking about the current state of my body or the upcoming surgery, when I’ve had enough sleep and eaten well the day before. But good or bad, it’s always complicated. It’s always about my mind and my body meeting someplace or refusing to meet in another place.

But a commitment to this life is a commitment to those exact ups and downs. It is knowing that some days the connection will be sharp, the road will unwind in front of me like a red carpet and I’ll glide along it. Other days, the road will seem too long to even step foot on. Neither road is wrong. Both contain valuable information about all the other roads ahead.

The road I’m on that’s leading me steadily and quickly to this hysterectomy is scary and lonely but knowing I’m walking it intentionally to get to the other side of healthy where I can once again begin working toward my fitness goals, makes it alright.

And maybe this is the strangest MoJo’s Kitchen post yet but I stand by the fact that EVERYTHING happens in the kitchen – maybe, even especially, intimate conversations about our fears and our va-jay-jays.